By Steve Neavling
Former President Trump was fined $10,000 on Wednesday for violating a gag order for a second time, and he stormed out of the courtroom with Secret Service agents in tow.
Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump $5,000 last week for failing to delete a social media post disparaging the judge’s clerk.
Engoron had barred the former president from making incendiary comments about the court staff.
Trump was in the New York City courtroom to testify in his $250 million state fraud case, NBC reports.
During a break in the trial, Trump told reporters, “this judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
The apparent reference to Engoron’s clerk prompted the judge to impose the fine and call the comments a “blatant” violation of the gag order.
Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was also questioned in court on Wednesday and said Trump “arbitrarily” inflated the value of the Trump Organization’s real estate assets in order to get tax benefits and better loan terms.
Later, Trump stormed out of the courtroom and muttered, “Unbelievable.”
Secret Service Agents chased after him.
